“Facebook’s trending bar deliberately suppresses conservative news, according to a new report. (The Guardian, May 9 2016)

“Facebook, now arguably the most important distributor of news online, has cultivated the idea that its bar is an impartial algorithm that responds to “likes” and gives users only what they’ve indicated they want.

“But in a bombshell confession on the tech blog Gizmodo, a former editor says popular conservative news would be kept off the “trending news” sidebar.

“I’d come on shift and I’d discover that CPAC [Conservative Political Action Conference] or Mitt Romney or Glenn Beck or popular conservative topics wouldn’t be trending because either the curator didn’t recognize the news topic or it was like they had a bias against Ted Cruz,” the former news curator told Gizmodo.

“The news started a firestorm in conservative media circles. The Drudge Report ran the piece in its top slot with a picture of Facebook’s chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg and the headline: “Not Leaning In ... Leaning Left!” a reference to her bestselling book, Lean In.

“The troubling thing about this is that Facebook is such a huge deal,” (Red State author Leon Wolf said. “They can make or break success in a way that nobody else can. There’s a lot of scrutiny that people have on CNN, they’re several orders of magnitude less influential than Facebook is.” (Guardian)

And Facebook is now stepping up its suppression of conservative Internet voices:

Although, he coyly denies it, CEO Mark Zuckerberg is bulldozing the field before throwing his hat into the ring for the 2020 US presidency race.

“Mark Zuckerberg and his wife have vowed to give away 99 percent of their Facebook shares, worth an estimated $45 billion, to charity. Benenson will advise the Facebook founder’s philanthropy, but the move comes amid speculation about Zuckerberg’s political ambitions. (Politico, Aug. 3, 2017)

“Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan, have hired Democratic pollster Joel Benenson, a former top adviser to President Barack Obama and the chief strategist to Hillary Clinton’s failed 2016 presidential campaign, as a consultant, according to a person familiar with the hire.

“Benenson’s company, Benenson Strategy Group, will be conducting research for the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, the couple’s philanthropy. The organization — whose mission statement, according to its website, is “advancing human potential and promoting equality” — is endowed with the couple’s Facebook fortune.

“Zuckerberg and Chan have vowed to give away 99 percent of their Facebook shares, worth an estimated $45 billion, to charity. Bringing on Benenson is the latest sign that they’re pushing their philanthropic work more heavily into the political and policy world.”

“Vowing to give away 99 percent of their Facebook shares” is not giving them away, it should be noted

“Vowing to give away 99 percent of their Facebook shares” is not giving them away, it should be noted,

“In January, the couple hired David Plouffe, campaign manager for Obama’s 2008 presidential run, as president of policy and advocacy. Plouffe had previously worked at Uber. Ken Mehlman, who ran President George W. Bush’s 2004 reelection campaign, also sits on the board. (Politico)

“And earlier this year, the couple also brought on Amy Dudley, a former communications adviser to Virginia Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine.

“Benenson’s involvement in the group gives them access to someone who was one of the top lieutenants of Clinton’s doomed campaign and Obama’s longtime pollster, just as speculation about Zuckerberg’s political ambitions is mounting.

“Benenson did not respond to a request for comment. Dudley, the spokeswoman for the initiative, did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

“Even though he has said he has no interest in running for office, Zuckerberg’s name – along with just about every other billionaire or elected official with half the name recognition of a second-tier Trump adviser – has been floated as a potential 2020 presidential candidate.

“Zuckerberg, 33, stirred the speculation in June when he posted pictures of his road trip through Iowa, the first state to caucus in the primaries, as part of the tech entrepreneur’s year-long project to visit every U.S. state. He has also toured a Ford assembly plant outside Detroit, a key city in the critical Rust Belt state that Clinton lost to Trump; and Dayton, Ohio, the state long considered an election bellwether.

“Some of you have asked if this challenge means I’m running for public office,” Zuckerberg wrote on his Facebook page last May. “I’m not.”

“Even before his is-he-or-isn’t-he road trip, Zuckerberg had shown an interest in politics and social issues. In 2010, he announced during an appearance on “Oprah” that he was donating $100 million to help fix the Newark City public school system. The influx of Facebook cash, however, didn’t generate the desired results, and the gift became a nationally-recognized failure of good intentions.

“But the hiring of Benenson is sure to fuel speculation that Zuckerberg is getting more serious about how he plays in the political and policy worlds.”

There’s no room for anyone else in Zuckerberg’s Texas-sized ego.

Continued below...

Though he lacks his experience in the newspaper industry, Zuckerberg is the William Randolph Hearst of his day.

“An American newspaper publisher who built the nation’s largest newspaper chain and media company Hearst Communications and whose flamboyant methods of yellow journalism influenced the nation’s popular media by emphasizing sensationalism and human interest stories, Hearst entered the publishing business in 1887 after being given control of The San Francisco Examiner by his wealthy father. (Wikipedia) “Moving to New York City, he acquired The New York Journal and fought a bitter circulation war with Joseph Pulitzer’s New York World that sold papers by giant headlines over lurid stories featuring crime, corruption, graphics, sex, and innuendo. Acquiring more newspapers, Hearst created a chain that numbered nearly 30 papers in major American cities at its peak. He later expanded to magazines, creating the largest newspaper and magazine business in the world. (Wikipedia)

“He was twice elected as a Democrat to the U.S. House of Representatives, and ran unsuccessfully for President of the United States in 1904, Mayor of New York City in 1905 and 1909 and for Governor of New York in 1906. Politically he espoused the Progressive Movement, speaking on behalf of the working class. He controlled the editorial positions and coverage of political news in all his papers and magazines and thereby exercised enormous political influence.”

“His life story was the main inspiration for Charles Foster Kane, the lead character in Orson Welles’s film Citizen Kane.[3] His famous mansion, Hearst Castle, on a hill overlooking the Pacific Ocean near San Simeon, is now a State Historical Monument and a National Historic Landmark.”

Though he’ll never own up to it, by suppressing conservative Internet voices, Mark Zuckerberg is getting rid of any possible outspoken critics—before running for the 2020 presidency—a clear and present danger to the West as there can be little doubt Zuckerberg is part of the “America was never great” slogan meant to topple Donald Trump’s ‘Make America Great Again’.

RSS Feed for Judi McLeodJudi McLeod is an award-winning journalist with 30 years’ experience in the print media. A former Toronto Sun columnist, she also worked for the Kingston Whig Standard. Her work has appeared on Rush Limbaugh, Newsmax.com, Drudge Report, Foxnews.com.

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